


heart torn out

by yaboy6022



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Also.... theres details that might not be canon compliant actually, Canon Compliant, Canon Compliant Up Until HIC, Fix-It, Heroes In Crisis Fix-It, M/M, also i'll be real i stopped reading titans after they wrote roy off the team, bc can we PLEASE let him protect his arms, but theyre small like jason did get a new look post rhato annual but he kept the leather jacket, by killing roy first? because i sure do!, i know it says major char death i promise i did actually Fix It, remember when duela said she was tearing jason's heart out, so if anything important happened there i wouldn't know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 19:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16165376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaboy6022/pseuds/yaboy6022
Summary: HEROES IN CRISIS SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLYRoy dies in Sanctuary. Jason deals with that, or doesn't.





	heart torn out

**Author's Note:**

> okay I'll be real with you chiefs I started this about 2 months ago operating on the assumption that our boy would in fact die (look... I was Coping....) and I really hoped tom king would make me look like a clown ass bitch idiot for doing so but as we all know... he didn't. SO I polished this bad boy up and here we are. I didn't intend for this to be over like, maybe 3k but it be like that sometimes. this one goes out to my jayroy enablers in the groupchats.

Roy didn’t remember dying.

He remembered realizing he was going to die—he remembered that moment vividly, the perfect combination of terror and the deepest, aching sadness, one which is indescribable because no one who truly feels it ever lives—in Sanctuary, and then he remembered burning and drowning at the same time. Choking on water while every inch of his skin screams in agony.

He remembered this mostly while he was trying to sleep, or really any time he stopped moving.

He wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed since it happened. He was in New York, in his apartment, and there was enough food to last months, and all his bills seem to have been paid. He’d been here for a few weeks, at least, but he had only vague memories between the horrible water and about two weeks back.

Sometimes, he went over what he remembered from before events started to be connected by linear time again, trying to recall enough to figure out what happened. The water. Stone and flickering lights. Someone else there with him, although he wasn’t sure if that was real because sometimes it was a man and sometimes it was a woman and Roy thought he should remember their faces, but he couldn’t. Time passed, or not, he wasn’t sure. Then, somehow, he was somewhere else, and someone was taking care of him, giving him food and water and clothing him, and he thought it might be the same man as before because the familiarity was still there but he still couldn’t picture a face. Then, he could take care of himself again, although it was like he was watching someone pilot his body while he drifts along just behind.

And then, at some point, Roy was back in his apartment in New York, and there with him was none other than Jason Todd, his best friend. Or maybe Jason had been there all along. He couldn’t remember. All he knew was a feeling of relief that they were together again. And he knew that Jason had steady hands that held him up when he couldn’t stand and when he couldn’t stop shaking because he was remembering dying or the burning water. He knew that Jason made sure he got water and food and was there when he fell asleep, fitfully, almost every night. Until he wasn’t. Until he disappeared, and Roy was left alone.

He didn’t understand why Jason had left him, again.

He wanted to reach out to his friends, like the Titans, but he wasn’t sure he wasn’t still dead, and in hell or purgatory or something. If he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t sure if they thought he was dead still. And he was afraid of how they’d react to him being alive—if that’s what he was.

He even wanted to reach out to Oliver, because he knew Oliver had done the whole “dying and coming back to life” thing before. And remarkably, they’d been on good terms for once, and it was nice. Once he figured out how, he’d call Ollie.

He remembered when Oliver came back from the dead. He was much the same as before. Roy didn’t remember him going through all this. _Of fucking course,_ he thought to himself, about his own situation. _Once again, I can’t catch a goddamn break_.

The only other person he knew who’d died—like really died, all the way—and come back, was Jason. Jason hadn’t come back unchanged. Jason came back _fucking pissed_ and tore Gotham’s underworld, and some of its heroes, several new ones. He thought Jason would understand at least some of what he was going through, because from what Jason told him, he didn’t have an easy go of it when he came back either. But he didn’t like talking to Jason about that, unless Jason wanted to talk about it, which he very rarely did.

He missed Jason. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since Jason disappeared, and sometimes he wondered if it had been real. Just weeks before he died, he’d finally, after over a year, heard from his ex-best friend slash partner slash… whatever they were. And he’d been mad, at first, but there are just some people that in your life that you can’t stay mad at. And Jason had decided to have Fight Night with Batman and gotten his ass handed to him, so he’d needed Roy’s help. So of course, Roy had been there.

And then he took Jason away to the island where they used to live, so Jason could heal and deal with his feelings surrounding the situation with his father—his _biological_ father, not Bruce—and the Penguin and Batman. Roy tried his best to be there, to bring Jason breakfast and help him with his bandages and listen to him vent about Bruce and anything else he could possibly do. In many ways, things were good again—they had each other, and there were things they had both missed that they could have again. But there were some things that couldn’t heal, not yet. Jason put on a façade of emotional recovery, for Roy’s sake, but Roy could see right through it and see Jason was still angry and hurting.

Then Jason was physically okay enough to fight, and they were off righting wrongs like nothing had ever changed. There was that old _thing_ they never talked about, and how Jason had left him in that warehouse, after he nearly died, talking about how Roy was better than him, or some such bullshit, and they still didn’t talk about it, because it was easy to pretend like the past didn’t exist when they felt like they were fighting for the future. Then, once everything was squared away, Roy left, went to Sanctuary. And then he died.

He’d offered for Jason to come with him, but he knew Jason would die again before choosing to let someone help him (Roy was the only one, as far as he knew, who had ever been able to get Jason to talk about himself in a way that could possibly lead to recovery). And so, Jason hadn’t been there when Roy died.

He wondered how Jason had reacted to him dying. The man wasn’t well known for good coping strategies. He also wondered how Jason had reacted to his return—surely someone who had been put through the hell that Jason had endured as a result of his resurrection would not be so happy to hear it had happened to someone else.

Roy realized he was going to have to figure out how to live again. The food in his apartment would run out at some point, and he couldn’t just exist in a haze, in his room, thinking about the past.

He needed to be able to go outside. He didn’t have a phone. He needed to get that, so he could contact the Titans or Oliver or _whoever else,_ he thought, pointedly not mentioning Jason in his mental list. He needed to know if he can still fire a bow. He still had all his technical knowledge—he knew this because he read and understood academic journals to calm himself down when he could feel a panic attack incoming. Focusing on deciphering the dense jargon describing a multi-step synthesis or the properties of a catalyst was one of the few ways he’d found he could distract himself.

He needed to figure out how much time has passed since he died. He needed to find out what happened to Jason—if they’d had another fight, if they’d “broken up” again, or if he’d gotten hurt, or worse. He needed to reintroduce himself to the world, let people know he wasn’t dead.

It was overwhelming.

 _I can’t do this,_ he thought. He had been dead, and buried, presumably. This wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be back. He remembered one time he and Jason lay side by side, on their backs, one of many nights neither of them could sleep so they’d shoot the shit, or they’d just lay silently and take comfort in each other, depending on how they were feeling. The bed would sag a little under their weight, and gravity would press their sides together. This particular night, Jason had been quiet, until he spoke suddenly and Roy snapped out of his thoughts. “I think it’s wrong,” Jason had said. And Roy had asked what he meant, and Jason said “I think it’s wrong that I’m here. When someone dies, they’re supposed to stay dead.”

And at the time, Roy had said something about how everything happens for a reason, but Jason had shaken his head and said, “That’s some bullshit.” So Roy had told him that maybe there wasn't a greater meaning, so he had to find one for himself and hold on to it.

Jason had told him, “I think you might be it.”

And Roy had felt like he could barely breathe; his heart was so full it took up all the space in his chest. And he’d thought there was no way it was wrong that Jason was there, no matter how he’d gotten there.

Soon, they were asleep, side by side, their shapes fitting each other perfectly.

But now Roy understood exactly what Jason had meant.

—

It was afternoon, and Roy had just come back from taking a walk—out his apartment door, down the stairs, and outside to the street corner and then back to the building and up the stairs with his heart racing and his feet stumbling a little, anxious to get back.

He was sitting on the floor, below his window. Strategically speaking, the safest place in his living room. He was doing nothing but trying to calm his nerves, when someone tried to open the door.

Instantly, he went on full defense mode. There was a kitchen knife on the counter which he snatched up. He crouched behind a chair, waiting for the attack.

His door was locked, of course, but whoever was outside had a key, and had stuck it in the lock and unlocked the door. Luckily, Roy had taken to using the two extra latches he’d installed during one of his more paranoid periods, so the door still couldn’t be opened unless whoever it was kicked the door in, which was a distinct possibility. He heard the man outside grumbling to himself, and then it was quiet.

Roy carefully crept to his door, knife in hand, and re-locked the main lock.

Then he stood, with his back against the door, and breathed out.

Minutes passed, and he still stood completely still, clutching the knife.

Then, he heard the scrape of one of his windows opening, and his heart jumped into his throat. It was the one in his bedroom, that had the fire escape outside. He was convinced he was going to die, again, even though everyone in the world thought he was already dead. That was just the kind of luck he had.

And then the door to his bedroom swung open, and there was Jason Todd, his trademark leather jacket a little more beat-up than Roy remembered, his red helmet under one arm. He looked different than Roy thought he remembered. His hair was short, almost buzzcut-short, and his outfit was different, except for the jacket.

When he saw Roy crouched by the door, knuckles white, clutching a kitchen knife, he put his hands up. The helmet clanged to the floor, and Roy jumped.

“Hey, hey,” Jason said, calmly. “It’s me. Don’t worry. It’s okay. It’s me.” He took a step forward.

Roy stayed frozen.

“It’s me.”

“You’re—you’re here. I thought you—“

“I know,” Jason said. “I got myself fucking captured. I know I’ve said this before, but this really is the last time I trust _fucking_ Batman, or anyone on his _garbage_ Justice League. I’m so, _so,_ sorry. I’m back now. It’s okay, it’s okay.” He dropped his hands.

“It’s been so long.”

“What?” Jason said, a puzzled look on his face. “What the hell are you talking about, Harper?”

“I don’t even remember why you left,” Roy said, quietly, knowing now that something was wrong; Jason wouldn’t act so nonchalant about this if what Roy thought had happened had really happening

Jason’s face twisted like he’d been hit. “Oh, God, Roy,” he said. “It’s been—it’s only been just over a week.”

Roy closed his eyes, shook his head. “No, I thought—“

 “I’m going to come over there now,” Jason said.

Roy didn’t say anything and didn’t move, and Jason came to him, and put his hand on Roy’s hand holding the knife. Roy dropped the knife and Jason picked it up and put it back on the kitchen counter.

“It won’t be like this forever,” Jason said. “Some parts of it never go away, but the forgetting. That goes away.”

“What if it’s different for me?” Roy said.

“It won’t be.” Roy thought he saw a shadow cross Jason’s face for a second, and then he smiled and Roy thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay.

 —

Jason didn’t hear that Roy had died until he’d been dead for more than a week. The Outlaws were gone, and he was cut off from Batman and by extension cut off from the rest of the family. He was in retrograde, falling back to his old ways, more trauma than man. He had thought things might be okay again before he had the fight with the old man, because he’d finally had the _goddamn_ guts to call Roy despite everything that had happened. It had gone to voicemail. The voice of his best friend, who he hadn’t heard from in months: “It’s Roy! You know what to do!” He sounded happy, and Jason’s chest hurt.

Jason almost forgot to talk after the _beep_. “Hey,” he finally said. “It’s m—it’s Jason. I know you probably still don’t want to hear from me, but… Man, I just wanna say, I’m sorry for everything. I know that’s not enough.” He sighed. “Sorry. I should have done this a long time ago. I miss your stupid ass, Harper. Everything’s falling apart.”

He sat there for a second, forgetting the message was still recording, before hanging up. 

A few days later, he was on a rooftop in Gotham, and Bruce was tearing the bat off his chest, and he thought about how he hadn’t really fought back much at all, and his shoulder was dislocated and his face stung because Bruce had crushed the mask with him still in it, and he was lying there staring up at the blackness of the night as the man he was just starting to think of as a father again beat that idea right out of him. He felt the old scar on the side of his neck, the one from the batarang, like it was fresh.  

And then, Bruce let him go, and like a miracle, Roy Harper was pulling him to his feet. He put Jason’s arm over his shoulders, and with one hand on Jason’s bare chest, held him steady there amongst the smoke.

“I got you, buddy,” he’d said.

Jason tried to say something, but all that came out clear was Roy’s name. 

Later, after Roy popped Jason’s shoulder back in, they were at Jason’s safe house, standing in the middle of the room while Roy helped take off the helmet and the jacket. Jason, with his busted arm and the bruises on his face and the broken ribs, felt the light return, just a little bit, to his heart. It was a side effect of being around his best friend he knew very well. And when he was done, Roy stood there for a second, looked Jason up and down, and said “Goddamn, Jaybird, you fall down a flight of stairs, or what?”

Jason didn’t say anything, just let Roy pull him into a hug that was a little too tight for his injuries. “Ow,” he mumbled, but he didn’t let go.

“That hurt?” Roy said.

“Just a little,” Jason said, as they pulled apart.

“Good,” Roy said. “I’m still working on forgiving you for that bullshit a year ago. Never gonna be what I want you to be, my ass.”

Jason winced at his own paraphrased words.

“We can talk about it later,” Roy said. “What happened to you, anyways?”

And then Jason explained everything that had happened, with the new Outlaws (“Guess you really do have a thing for redheads,” Roy said when Jason told him about his fake date with Artemis) and Penguin and Willis Todd and Batman and how he felt like he was slipping backwards, losing everything he’d built and all the healing he’d done. And Roy listened, because he of all people understood that the path to getting better wasn’t a straight line.

As soon as Jason could bear it, Roy whisked him away to the island where the two of them and Kory had lived, back in the day. And it was almost like before, but not quite, and Jason missed the casual touches they used to have, and how Roy would lean on him when they watched a movie and eventually fall asleep, and the times when he’d get hurt on a mission and Roy’s gentle hands would patch him up and then they’d just be talking while Roy traced delicate patterns into his skin.

They hadn’t had a name for what they were, but they had names for each other, whispered in the night as they lay side by side, two halves of the same heart.

Then Roy told Jason he was leaving, and he’d see Jason soon, and they’d talk about everything. He asked Jason to come along, but Jason forgot how easy it was to lose things you love, and took it as a given that Roy would be back out in a few weeks, and then they could start again.

And then Roy was gone, but he called Jason the first couple of days, making sure he was okay and hadn’t gone off and done something stupid.

Then the calls stopped, and Jason told himself it was his paranoia saying something was wrong.

The next call wasn’t from Roy but Dinah Lance, of all people, and his heart instantly froze solid, because the only common denominator between them was Roy, and Dinah told him.

Told him Roy was gone.

Told him Roy was dead.

That day the world turned white-hot, and the next thing Jason knew, he was meeting Talia al Ghul aboard her private plane.

He was barely contained, seconds away from killing their pilot and flying the plane straight into the ground. But he didn’t, because there was one thing that kept him going.

“Do you have the body?” Talia said.

“No,” Jason said, and he saw her face twitch slightly at the pain in his voice. He remembered screaming at the cold headstone, in the dark of the night, his vision too blurred to read _ROY WILLIAM HARPER, JR._ on its face. “But I know where—where they—where—“

 “My son,” Talia said, her voice soft, “I know what you have lost.”

Jason clenched his fists and closed his eyes, and a tear fell down his face. “You have no idea,” he said, his voice low.

“I know when one has lost love,” she said. “I don’t presume to know exactly who it is, but you have lost the one who can never be replaced.”

“That is not what this is—“ Jason turned away. “I should have been there, and I wasn’t.” It took every ounce of his effort not to scream, and beg, for her to give him what he wished. “Can you help me, or not?”

Talia looked at him, with something resembling pity in her eyes. “You would put another through the hell you endured?”

Jason held back a sob. “We will figure it out,” he said. “We always do. Together. I can’t—not on my own.” He knew it was wrong, knew Roy would never forgive him, but he would have done anything for even one more day.

Talia sighed. “If you can acquire the body, I can give you what you want.” She gave him a meeting time and place, and left him for her own private quarters on the plane.

— 

That was how, a few days and a grave robbery later, Jason ended up back at one of the strongholds of the League of Assassins with Talia and the body of his best friend. Talia made no comment when she saw who it was.

Jason wasn’t allowed to go to the Pits, and so when Talia and her men took Roy’s body away he waited in the cold stone chamber where Talia had left him. He couldn’t afford to think. He knew what he’d done was worse than all the crimes he’d committed as the Red Hood, knew he was the most selfish man alive.

He told himself they’d figure it out together. They always did. They could do anything, together, survive anything. 

He sat there, completely still, on the floor, for over an hour before he heard faint sounds in the hallway, and he jumped to his feet.

Talia opened the door to the room, and behind her were four of her men carrying a kind of stretcher, and on the stretcher, was Roy. Jason couldn’t move, while they brought the stretcher in and laid it on the floor. He knelt by the seemingly lifeless body.

“I will leave you now,” Talia said. “He will wake soon. We gave him something to put him to sleep after he came out. I learned from your own resurrection.” Then she motioned to her men and they left, silently.

Roy’s hair was still wet, and it formed an orange-red halo around his head. His eyes were closed, and he was wearing only a pair of white cutoff pants, which were dry. He was pale, not quite deathly pale, but still not normal either. Jason had come out of the Pit with a Y-shaped autopsy scar that he still carried to this day, but Roy didn’t have one.

Jason’s hand shook as he put it on Roy’s chest, to see if he was really breathing. His skin was warm, but not as warm as it should have been.

When Jason felt the faint rise of Roy’s chest, he began to cry, and collapsed over him, his tears falling on Roy’s collarbone.

Jason held onto Roy for dear life, until he felt the weakest of movement beneath him. He sat up, and saw Roy’s eyes were open. Jason helped him into a sitting position, and tried not to look into Roy’s eyes that stared blankly into the wall. “Hey,” he whispered, and there was no response. “Hey. It’s good to see you.”

Roy didn’t say anything. Jason realized he must be freezing, so he took a blanket off the bed and wrapped Roy in it, and then Jason sat down next to him, and held him, and talked to him, a mostly incoherent stream of consciousness.

They sat like that for hours, Jason telling Roy stories about the year they’d been apart. He’d interrupt himself every so often and say, “You with me, Harper?” but Roy never reacted. Jason kept telling him everything he could think of—“We had an invisible base in the sky, and we could go anywhere in the world, instantly, it was so cool, you would love it, you would love it so much, I know how much you like figuring out how things work, and I loved watching you do it, you know? You know?” And he touched Roy’s face, softly, with two fingers. And then he closed his eyes and the tears came again, but he took a deep breath and kept going.

Eventually, the sun went down.

Jason stopped his stories. “I need to get you to bed, huh?” he said. “Need to sleep.” He put Roy’s arm over his shoulders, and wrapped his arm around his friend, and lifted him up.

Roy was by no means standing on his own, but he was holding a bit of his weight, through muscle memory. Jason dragged him over to the bed, and laid him down gently, and covered him with the blanket, and made sure he had a pillow.

Then he stood, by the side of the bed. “Try to sleep, right?” he said, softly. And he pushed the hair out of Roy’s face, and pulled the blanket up a little farther, and then he paused for a minute by the bed.

Then Roy’s hand moved, just slightly. Jason thought he imagined at first, but Roy weakly reached out and brushed Jason’s hand with the tips of his fingers, and then his arm dropped back down to the bed.

Jason didn’t even think before laying down beside him.

 —

He woke the next morning to the sound of his own name.

“Jason.”

Jason’s eyes snapped open and he rolled over to see Roy sitting up on top of the blankets, staring at him.

“Jason,” Roy said again. He looked just slightly dazed, no longer completely vacant.

“Yeah,” Jason said with a half-smile. “Yeah, it’s me, baby.”

“Where am I?” Roy said.

Jason’s smile disappeared. “Somewhere safe. Do you remember what happened to you?” And then fear clutched Jason’s chest. “Do you remember your name?” he asked.

“My name is Roy Harper. I died.” His voice was flat. “But I’m not dead now.”

“Yeah.” Jason breathed a sigh of relief.

Roy lay back down. He didn’t close his eyes, though, just stared straight up. Jason had to fight not to cry, just looking at him. He’d seen Roy in some bad places, seen him beat up in every way imaginable, seen him broken and defeated, but nothing ever like this. This was something else, something arcane and awful, and it was Jason’s doing.

In a couple of hours, Talia brought Roy a fresh change of clothes, and said, “You must leave today. My father is returning. You cannot be here when he does.”

Jason nodded, and when Talia had left, he helped Roy into the clothes.

Later, he put his arm around Roy’s back and carried him out to where a car was waiting to take them to the airfield, where Talia’s plane was waiting to take them back home.

 —

Jason knew it was risky to go back to his apartment in Gotham, given his current relationship with Bruce, but he didn’t know where else they could go. Presumably, Roy had a place, so there was that as a backup, but he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get in, and besides, he craved the familiarity of his own home (such as it was).

“Where are we going?” Roy said, in that same flat, hollow tone that sent chills up Jason’s spine.

“My apartment,” Jason said.

They were in a taxi, because Talia had sent a car to pick him up with Roy—with Roy’s _body_ —when Jason had left. Jason knew the cabbie suspected them of something, between Jason’s poor excuse for civilian clothes and Roy’s heavy-lidded, vacant face and the fact that he spent the entire ride with his head resting on Jason’s shoulder. Jason put on his best “do _not_ ask questions” face, setting his jaw and making direct, intense eye contact every time the cabbie narrowed his eyes as he looked at them in the rear-view mirror.

When they got out of the cab, the driver said quietly, “You get your friend home safe,” to Jason as Jason was paying the fare. Jason fought the urge to glare at him, and forced himself to nod silently.

The apartment was cool and dark and quiet. Jason flicked on a lamp and the warm light flooded the room.

“How did we get here?” Roy asked.

Jason felt a hopeless feeling clutch his heart. “A plane.”

“I don’t remember.”

Jason reminded himself he had no memories of the weeks after his resurrection. “It’s okay,” he said.

That night, Jason took the couch, but he didn’t sleep.

 —

The next few days Jason spent taking care of Roy. Every day, more of his personality returned, but his short-term memory was almost nonexistent and often, the last thing he remembered was dying. Jason held him in the night when he woke from nightmares (the same way Roy had done for him, dozens of times), and he held him in the day when he forgot where he was and thought he was dying, or dead still. “I got you,” he’d say, over and over again.

Jason avoided contact with everyone the best he could, but as always, he could never quite shake Bruce whenever he was in Gotham. He thought they were going to throw down for the thousandth time, and he didn’t feel like fighting, not with everything that he was dealing with.

The Bat—not Bruce—cornered him in an alley when he was on his way out for groceries, in plain clothes, but armed, as always.

“What is it this time, old man?” Jason said, putting everything he didn’t have into snark and disdain. No answer. “Really, I didn’t even do anything.”

“I just want to talk,” Bruce said.

“Is it something I’ve heard a million times before? ‘Cause if so, I’m gonna have to go. I’m a little busy trying to live a life after crime, you know.”

“Jason.”

“I really don’t have time for this,” Jason said, and he started towards Bruce, to push past him and leave,

“Jason. Please. Listen to me, just this one time,” Bruce said, and Jason stopped.

“Fine. You have five seconds,” Jason said.

“I know what you’re hiding. At your apartment.”

Jason’s heart jumped to his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but he knew he was betraying himself, was sure his heart was beating out of his chest, could almost feel his skin go pale, and he missed the cold anonymity of the hood.

“Does he know? Does he know what you did?”

“Fuck off,” Jason said, with every bit of venom he could muster.

“If you don’t tell him, he’s going to find out.”

“You think I don’t know that? Do you have anything useful to say, or can I go?”

Bruce stepped aside, and Jason practically ran out of the alley, and then he went straight home. He could make do with what food he had, for now.

When he made it to the door of his apartment, he stopped, closed his eyes, clenched his fists as tight as he could until the bones and skin of his hands hurt, and then took a long, deep breath. In, and out, and then he released his hands and opened the door.

 —

One evening they were both reading, when Jason noticed it was almost midnight. “C’mon. You should sleep,” he said, opening the door to his bedroom. “I gotta go take care of some stuff.”

“You want me to sleep in your bed?” Roy said, which was weird, because he had been ever since he got here. Maybe his memory was still bad, or worse than Jason thought. But there was something about the way he asked it, something that sounded like the old Roy Harper.

“Yeah,” Jason said, confused, and then looked over noticed Roy was looking at him, his eyebrows raised slightly.

Jason huffed. “There’s only one bed, smartass. I’m not even gonna be here. I just want you to get rest while I go deal with things.”

“Already trying to put the moves on me,” Roy said, and Jason felt a tightness in his chest, because Roy really did sound like himself. Tired, but himself.

“Sleep on the couch, then. See how that goes for you,” Jason said.

“I think I remember you tried it on the couch, too.”

“You say that like you didn’t like it.”

“I did.” A heavy silence. “We never talked about it, you know.”

“We didn’t, did we?” Jason said.

Jason put a hand on Roy’s shoulder, and left it there a moment. Then, he gathered his things to leave, and Roy disappeared into the bedroom.

 —

The first time they’d been at Jason’s Gotham apartment was when they had been friends for a while, but nothing more. The first Outlaws team was over, and now it was just Roy and Jason, a warehouse in the California desert, and their joint bank account which Jason regretted except for the moment when they were at the bank and the bank person asked how long they’d been together and Jason had started to say they weren’t, but Roy had cut him off and put his hand on Jason’s arm and said “Feels like years but it’s only been two months!”. This had earned a badly concealed judgmental frown, but Jason didn’t notice because he couldn’t stop thinking about the exact moment when Roy had touched him, and thinking about what that might have meant.

They were in town for a case, and when they were done for the day, they dragged themselves in through the window, threw their gear in a pile on the floor, and collapsed on the couch.

“Is it always like this here?” Roy said, his head thrown back over the top of the cushions.

“Like what?” Jason asked.

“You know, the creative murder types and eldritch horror on every street corner.”

“Mm. Yeah,” Jason said. “Robot Batman is new, though. Damn. Guess shit is even weirder with Bruce dead.”

Roy rolled his head so he was looking right at Jason. “You still don’t wanna talk about that? I mean, I know you guys have had your difficulties, but, the dude’s basically your dad, right?”

Jason clenched his jaw. “I don’t. I guess I prefer to repress. Think if I talked about it, I’d lose many years’ worth of emotional barriers, and even I don’t know what’s under there. Don’t wanna know.”

“Not healthy, but understandable.”

“And I don’t think I’ve really accepted he’s dead, you know? He’s probably not. Like, we thought Dickie was dead, too. I’m the only one who ever really bit the bullet.”

Roy sat up. “I still gotta kick his fuckin’ ass for that, by the way.”

Jason laughed. “You do that, Harper.”

“Really, though, if you ever decide you want to brave the whole ‘emotions’ thing and talk about Bruce, I’ll listen,” Roy said, and he looked as sincere as Jason had ever seen him.

“Yeah.” Jason shifted a little. He thought if he talked about it with anyone, it would be with Roy, but that just wasn’t somewhere he felt like going. If he talked about Bruce being dead, he might realize he gave a shit about the old man, which would be an unfortunate realization to have only after he was dead.

“You’ve got gunk in your hair,” Jason said, reaching out to pull a piece of _something_ from Roy’s hair, just below his ear. Somewhere along the way, his hand barely brushed Roy’s jaw.

He heard Roy breathe in. “Hey. That was part of my look,” he said.

Jason snorted.

“Shut up. I was gonna shower anyways,” Roy said, standing up.

“Alright. Oh, if you turn the faucet too hard it’ll break off in your hand.”

“Got it. Be right back.”

Jason was left alone, in his little living room. He was aware of a strange and fierce affection that was growing in him for this man he called his best friend, and he was thinking that it might not be the kind of thing that he was allowed to have. He was certain Roy loved him, as friends do, but he was sure he would carry this warm little secret in his heart forever because there was no way someone like him could have someone like Roy Harper. Later, it would be this idea that would scare him enough to make him leave Roy alone in that cold warehouse after they both almost died, one of the worst mistakes of his life. Jason was cold, mean, maybe bordering on evil at times, he was bad at trusting, he hadn’t even been sure he could love until he found himself thinking about Roy’s laugh and his stupid jokes and his big smiles and whispering the nickname Roy gave him to himself while he lay trying to fall asleep. “Jaybird, I’ve got you,” “You okay, Jaybird?” “I’m on your six, Jaybird,” he heard in Roy’s voice in his head, and he smiled to himself. And he maybe could have mistaken that for a deep kind of friendship, if it weren’t for the nights where he thought about the line of Roy’s jaw and his lips and the tiny freckles on his collarbone and the curves of his arms and the times they’d changed in front of each other. And then he’d get a tight feeling in his stomach, and he’d roll over and force himself to think about something else.

Sure, there were times when he thought maybe Roy touched him more than was necessary, or maybe he looked at Jason and his eyes went soft, or maybe he made too many flirtatious jokes for there not to be a single grain of seriousness in what he said. But really, what could Jason Todd know about that sort of thing?

Roy was his best friend in the world. He didn’t want to lose that—not for anything. Not for all the monsters they’d faced and certainly not for his stupid crush.

Maybe twenty minutes passed before Roy emerged from the bathroom. He had changed into sweatpants and a faded green tank top with an unintelligible logo on it that Jason felt was decidedly too loose around his shoulders. His hair was wet and hung in his face a little.

“You look like you’ve never seen me before,” Roy said.

“Never seen you showered, that’s all.”

“Hilarious.” Roy joined him on the couch, swinging both legs up over Jason’s thighs and leaning back against the armrest. He laced his fingers together and placed them on his chest, and said, “So. What’s the plan for the rest of the night?”

“Well, I’m all outta ass-kicking energy, and my TV is broken, and you’re here, so...”

“We have to entertain ourselves?” Roy said, and he winked and bit his lip in an over-exaggerated way that made Jason kind of want to punch him.

“Was actually gonna say ‘so I might just go straight to sleep cause there’s nothing to do’, but now I think I should throw you out the window for that, just now,” Jason said.

“Oh, you love me,” Roy said, and he reached for Jason’s hand where he had it draped over the back of the couch. Jason smacked his hand, lightly, and Roy rolled his eyes and re-laced his hands together.

Jason didn’t know what would happen if he let Roy take his hand. This was the way they were.

“Also,” Roy said, “If you did go to sleep, there’s only one bed in your apartment, so…” and he did the same exaggerate wink and lip-bite, and then laughed when Jason put his face in his hands. “Hey, it’s cool. I’ll take the couch tonight, Jaybird,” Roy said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, man, I’m sure. You let me into your… weirdly-clean apartment, and let me eat your food and use all your hot water. So, you know. I’ll let you sleep in your own bed.”

“Oh, you’ll _let me_ ,” Jason said.

“I’m nice like that.”

“Sure.” Then, after a pause— “Thanks,” to which Roy gave a slight nod.

They sat in comfortable silence for a short time, and Jason mentally slapped himself for wishing he had more than _this_. _This_ —them as best friends, them as partners—was really nice.

“You know what we should do?” Roy said, finally.

“What’s that?”

“We should go all-out on this whole heroes-for-hire business for a few months, and make enough money to fuck off to some island somewhere and just live out the rest of our days drinking non-alcoholic cocktails and being fed grapes by hot dudes in robes and shit. You know. Just retire in our twenties like a couple of damn yuppies.”

“I give you two days to die of boredom,” Jason said, and then something Roy said clicked in his brain. “What about hot girls?”

Roy looked him straight in the eye so Jason felt like the world was spinning too fast on its axis. “Come on, Jaybird,” he said. “Thought you knew me.”

“I do,” Jason said, breaking eye contact lest he stumble over his words like a thirteen year old who got noticed by the hottest boy in school for the first time. “You’d still get bored in a day and a half and find a way to make an improvised bomb out of a coconut shell and some special mineral sands just ‘cause you needed something to explode.”

“Also fair,” Roy said. “But you can’t make a bomb out of sand, unless—“

“I swear to God, Harper, if you explain chemistry to me again I’ll punch you.”

“No, you won’t,” Roy said, and then they fell into another easy silence. Roy was right. Jason liked listening to Roy go on about how his latest trick arrows and complicated weapons worked, even if he didn’t fully understand. Everyone—Jason included—always joked about Roy being a dumbass, but Jason didn’t really believe it. Roy could build anything, design anything, and he made every part of his trick arrows himself, even the chemicals inside, which he knew all the technical names of, and also the names of the individual reactions used to synthesize them (except when they didn’t have names, because Roy invented them, and then he’d say something like, “I’m going to call this one the Harper Reduction,” and Jason would say, “Wasn’t that the name of the last one you invented? You can't just name them all after yourself,” and Roy would shake his head earnestly and say, “No, that was the Harper [2+2] Cycloaddition. And don’t touch that.” And Jason would blink and snatch his hand away from whatever glass vial he was about to touch and try not to show his awe at Roy’s casual genius, because then Roy would say something snarky about how Jason was trying to flatter him but he’d never get away with it, because that was the way they were).

“I’m serious, though,” Roy said, finally, just as Jason had thought they both might be about to fall asleep. He sat up a little, his legs still out over Jason’s. “Sometimes I just want to retire, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jason said, absently.

“And I wouldn’t get bored, not with you there.” And when Roy said the word “you”, he reached out and tapped Jason on the nose.

“Okay,” Jason said, stupidly, and he felt his heart beat like an entire marching band.

“So, we’re going to the island,” Roy said, and he sat up further, and reached for Jason’s arm, and began dragging his index finger up and down Jason’s bicep.

Then he pushed himself back so he was against the armrest again. “I gotta lean on something,” he said. “Here, come over here,” he said, and Jason, heart in his throat, slid over until they were right next to each other at a perfect right angle, Roy’s legs over Jason’s.

“Anyways. The island,” Roy said. “Like, the one the three of us used to live at, you know?”

“I’m not really an island guy,” Jason said.

This time, Roy put his hand behind Jason’s neck, and started to lightly touch his shoulders, the top part of his back, his neck.

Jason’s skin prickled.

He didn’t know what he was meant to do in this situation—there was no script, no status quo, no old joke they could fall back on. This was not the way that they were. Unless it was, and Jason just hadn’t noticed.

“Okay,” Roy said. “I can work with that. Doesn’t have to be an island.” He paused. “Where do you want to go when you retire?”

“I’m not sure,” Jason said, and he let his head tip to one side as Roy found his jawline with his thumb.

“‘Cause I’ll go where you go,” Roy said. “Doesn’t matter to me, long as you’re there.”

“Sounds kinda corny,” Jason said.

“I’m serious,” Roy said, quieter. “I’d go anywhere with you.” He was close enough so Jason could smell his own shampoo in Roy’s still-slightly-damp hair.

“Would you now.”

“I would. Anywhere, anytime, I’ll be with you.”

“Oh, don’t you dare get soft on me now, Harper,” Jason said.

“Too late,” Roy whispered, and then he was combing his fingers through Jason’s hair.

Jason took a deep breath. “So, anywhere,” he said, and he carefully placed a hand on Roy’s thigh. “I think I could retire right here.”

“God, J, in _Gotham_?”

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” Jason said.

“ _We_ aren’t so bad.” Roy’s hand made an almost complete circle around Jason’s ear: through his hair and then down to his neck and his jaw. “This town, on the other hand, sucks _major_ ass.” He found Jason’s hand on his thigh and wrapped the hand that wasn’t already occupied around Jason’s wrist. “We’re pretty good, though, aren’t we?”

Something about the way he asked it gave Jason the distinct impression that the answer to this question held more weight than just the quality of their friendship. “We are,” he said.

Roy turned Jason’s face towards himself with two fingers on Jason’s opposite cheek. “You think so?” he said.

“Yeah, I really do,” Jason said in a low voice.

“Hm,” Roy said, and he dragged the two fingers from Jason’s cheek down to his chin, and then let his hand fall away.

They were looking right at each other, and Jason felt the world spin too fast again. Roy looked like he was waiting for something, and Jason finally looked away, shaking his head. “Don’t make me say it,” he said.

Roy touched the other side of Jason’s face again, so that Jason would look him in the eye again, and made an obviously-fake confused face. “Say what, Jason?” he said, tilting his head to one side.

Jason breathed in sharply, almost what one could consider a gasp, at his full name, which Roy never used. Always _Jaybird_ or _J_ , almost never _Jason_ , even when he was mad.

“Jason? What is it? What don’t you want to say? You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I can’t stand you,” Jason said, shaking his head but not breaking eye contact.

“Was that it? You say that, like, every day, but you’ve never done anything that made me believe you,” Roy said.

“Please,” Jason said, and Roy’s eyebrows shot up.

“‘Please’ what? What do you need?”

“Stop playing games, Roy, I—“

Roy put one finger on Jason’s lips. “Yeah, fine, it probably is about time,” he said, and he put his hands on either side of Jason’s head, and sat up a little so they were closer, and the next thing Jason felt was Roy’s lips on his. Roy still smelled like Jason’s shampoo and he kissed Jason like a man starved. Jason felt Roy’s hands dragging through hair, on his neck, and he remembered his own hands, remembered to push Roy’s hair out of his face and feel the curves and contours of Roy’s body until he could have formed it from memory. Roy kissed him until neither of them could breathe, and then Jason brushed the hair away from Roy’s neck, and kissed his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, and Roy, his head thrown back, made a soft sound and said, “Goddamn, Jaybird,” all quiet, and Jason felt it from his spine to his stomach to his ribs.

Jason tilted Roy’s head back towards him, and as their lips messily fit together again, Jason thought that if this lasted for a hundred years, it still wouldn’t be enough.

Some time passed before Roy pulled back, just barely, just enough to speak. “Mm. Hey. I think I want to go to sleep,” he said, softly.

“I assume you don’t want to sleep on the couch anymore?” Jason said, smiling.

“Hm.” Roy kissed him, quick and soft. “No.”

“Okay,” Jason said. “I suppose I’ll _let you_ sleep in my bed, then.”

“You are too good to me, baby,” Roy said, and swung his legs onto the floor. Jason stood up and pulled him up so they were both standing, facing each other.

Jason carefully tucked strands of Roy’s hair behind his ears, and Roy put his hands on Jason’s hips. Their faces were barely apart, so close that Jason almost couldn’t focus on the freckles on Roy’s cheeks.

“Take me to bed, Jaybird,” Roy finally said, with a sleepy grin, and he put an arm around Jason’s shoulders.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jason said, and they made their way to Jason’s bedroom, and collapsed together under the blankets.

Jason slept better than he had in years, in the arms of his best friend. 

After that night nothing much changed, which was both good and bad. They were the same as before, which was to say they did everything best friends did, except Jason had been right about Roy touching him more than was necessary—when they were working, when Jason made them breakfast, after they stitched each other’s wounds—and now they seemed to find any excuse to share a soft touch. And except, when they came home for the night they’d lay together, Jason’s face in Roy’s hair, their hands clasped together until they fell asleep. But they also never really talked about _them_ , what they were, partly because Jason was afraid if he moved anything everything they had would come crashing down, so he thought (and he was pretty sure he wasn’t he only one who thought this) that they could stay in this eternal in-between place and then it would never end.

And then Roy got kidnapped, and hundreds of strangers voted for his death, and Jason saw red and Roy didn’t seem like he would forgive him for it, so Jason ended everything before he could lose it.

That was that. The end of the happiest few weeks of Jason’s life, but it was better this way, better because he couldn’t fuck it up and lose Roy forever. This way, Roy would hate him for a bit, and then they’d talk, and become acquaintances bordering on friends again.

Except over a year passed, before they finally saw each other again, and they were both at the ends of their respective ropes. And then Roy died, and worse, Jason could have been there with him when he did, but instead he’d been too caught up in his own problems to choose staying at Roy’s side over whatever bullshit crusade he’d thought was the most important thing in the world at the time.

Jason thought, if he could just have another chance, he’d never leave his best friend’s side, if Roy would have him. And so, after two weeks of the most blood spilled by the Red Hood since Jason’s resurrection, he broke down and went back to the one place he thought he’d never see again.

He’d do better this time.

They’d be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> so I've written about half of chapter 2 so far, but I just went back to school so who knows when I'll be able to finish. I PROMISE I will though like if I don't I'm pretty sure some people in the groupchat will go fucking apeshit on me and kill me so I'm gonna do it.


End file.
